Snovvshoe-rabbit 643 



been so abundant. Those taken showed no sign of disease, 

 although thoroughly examined by my two medical friends. 

 In western Manitoba this same year they were very scarce. 



These are the generalizations that may safely be drawn: 

 A Rabbit year in one part of the country is not necessarily a 

 Rabbit year in another, the condition being local. 



An abundance of Rabbits is accompanied by an abun- oen- 

 dance of birds and beasts that prey on them, especially of conclu- 

 Lynxes, and yet the destruction by these enemies makes no ^'°^^ 

 perceptible difference. They are wiped out in a single spring 

 by epidemic disease or diseases usually characterized by swel- 

 ling of the throat, sores under the arm-pits and groins, and 

 by diarrhoea. 



The denser the Rabbit population the more drastically 

 is it ravaged by the plague. Apparently none are left in the 

 year after the most marvellous abundance. 



In the spring of 1882, when first I lived at Carberry, I num- 

 could find, perhaps, 2 Rabbits in three or four hours' tramp- ix year 

 ing through the woods. In 1883 they seemed no more plenti- plenty 

 ful; in 1884 one might see a dozen or more in a morning walk; 

 in 1885 they were perceptibly more numerous; but 1886, though 

 not a Rabbit year, at Lake of the Woods, it was the greatest 

 ever known in the western country. The area of abundance 

 began 30 or 40 mile§ east of Winnipeg, and included all of the 

 poplar country west and north-west of the city, that is all the 

 south-western half of the Province, excepting the open plains. 

 The abundance that year was prodigious. It so happened 

 that the snow was late in coming (November), yet promptly 

 in October the Snowshoes donned their winter garb of white, 

 so here was the vast brown country speckled and dotted, 

 streaked and crawling, with snow-white Rabbits in myriads. 

 Wherever you looked in scrub lands it was the same. W. R. 

 Hine wrote me: *'In October of this year on the Stinking 

 Water I killed 75 Rabbits in two hours. I could have killed 500 

 in a day." 



